Christmas at Thornton Hall

Contents

Lynn Marie Hulsman

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Summer at Castle Stone

Acknowledgements

About HarperImpulse

Copyright

About the Publisher

Lynn Marie Hulsman

I’m a writer. My mother’s death brought an epiphany. “Life is short,” said my inner voice. “Thanks, I.V.,” I replied. “I know what I have to do.” In short order, I got an agent, co-wrote two books, ghost-wrote another, published an article, and sold a novel.

Kentucky-born, tall tales and hyperbole are in my bones. I love story. My real jobs? Equity actor. Ad copy writer for casinos, (“Loose slots!”) Stand-up comic. Pharma editor. Cheese cube passer-outer (admitted low point). I’m an Ideation Agent (sounds fake, right?) and run an improv company in NYC. My favorite, favorite thing to do is write Romantic Comedy.

I live with my family in Hell’s Kitchen, and am seen around town auctioneering for charity, hosting gay men’s fashion shows, and calling bingo games.

You can follow me on Twitter @LynnMarieSays.

For my dear friend Kate Bushmann.

Chapter One

“Juliet, it’s Phillipa from The Gastronome’s Trust. Big stuff. I hope I’m not calling too early,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.

I held the phone with one hand and stroked the still-warm, empty space next to me in the bed with my other, drinking in the sensation of being a grown-up.

I seriously cannot believe I’m me, I thought, suppressing a manic giggle. I’m in my boyfriend’s Mayfair apartment – which he owns! – answering a phone call from my agent who’s about to offer me real money for my very much in demand culinary skills to put in my – wait for it! – savings account. A savings account which now has enough for me to go back to college and complete my sociology degree. Who would have thought it? Juliet Hill – back on track. Certified Grown-up. Even my mother would have to agree. My mind was racing, even though my body hadn’t quite caught up, yet.

I’m on the brink of a new beginning, I’m moving back to New York to complete the studies I’d dropped all those years ago. And I’m moving back with my successful boyfriend…successful and athletic, I thought, wincing as I stretched out my aching limbs. After recent work trips to the States, then New Zealand, Ben seemed determined to make up for lost time: he was like the cat that swallowed the canary. Absence had certainly made his body grow fonder, and his heart, too, I hoped. So maybe, if I’m honest with myself, my world hadn’t been properly rocked last night… but then he’d practically just stepped off a plane, for heaven’s sake, I couldn’t expect nirvana. We’d have plenty of time this holiday season to get back on the same page in the old sex department.

Where is he, anyway? I peeled one eye open to check the clock on his night table. 6:55 a.m. My agent, Phillipa, certainly was getting the worm, as it were.

“Juliet,” she said sharply. “Are you listening to me? I asked if I’ve awakened you.”

“No, Pips, it’s fine,” I lied breezily, forcing myself to sound alert, “I’ve been up for ages.” Phillipa Burton, owner of London’s top agency dedicated to placing chefs in private households, expects everyone’s full-on attention. I’ve always thought of her as one of those British school-mistressy types. She scares me a little, but I pretend she doesn’t. I’m a favorite because I’ve always behaved like a soldier in her army.

“Darling,” she said crisply, “I’ve just had a specific request come in for you to work over the Christmas holiday. I explained that you blacked those dates out with us, but the client insisted I ask, and here’s the kicker…You’d need to be there tonight.” She paused. “The housekeeper rang and said if I could send Juliet Hill, they’d pay a fee for the late notice, and a holiday bonus. The call came at six, and I’m sorry to say the offer’s only good until eight o’clock this morning.”

I let her talk, knowing I’d be turning the job down. I’d tell her about my plan to move back to New York with my soon-to-be fiancé and having to leave the business altogether once the holidays ended. No need to stir up emotions and spoil the joy right now. While she tried to sell me on the job, I let my mind wander to thoughts of caroling around the piano with Ben’s cousins and uncles, mugs of warm mulled wine on the sofa, and smiling faces peeking over a crispy roast goose flanked by massive tureens of root vegetables. This Christmas was going to be special – a real family celebration. Impeccable Ben, in his well-cut suit, standing possessively with his arm around my shoulders, welcoming me into the fold, and for once in my life, I’d be wearing the right thing. Nothing too slutty, or cheap. And certainly no stains on my starched, white blouse. His family would murmur among themselves about what a perfect match I was for their Ben.

I was determined that all would go according to plan. When I’d phoned him last week to firm up this year’s holiday plans, he’d been kind of quiet on the phone from his office in New Zealand – he’s on location there for a film his firm is representing. I’d chalked his lukewarm mood up to exhaustion. Poor Ben, I’d thought. He’s lost without a girl like me to loosen him up. After all, he is English. He can’t help it if he’s tightly wound.

He told me he had something important he wanted to talk about with me. Once he said that, I’d changed the subject, fast. I hadn’t wanted him to spoil the big surprise, hoping he wouldn’t discuss logistics until after the thrill of the engagement wore off. I couldn’t help grinning and giving myself a little hug just thinking about it.

Anyway, back to the present. Focus on Phillipa. I would never act like a diva with my agent so I let her ramble. “Keep your head down, do excellent work and don’t cause trouble,” is a roadmap I try to stick to. Well, for the most part, if you don’t mind turning a blind eye to the whole Paris debacle.

“Juliet!” Phillipa barked, snapping me out of my daydream again. “Did you catch that? I said eight a.m.”

“Of course, sorry,” I said, stifling a yawn. “Who requested me?” I asked, though I pretty much knew.

“So you’re interested? Are you changing your mind?”

I wavered for half a second. Of all the food-forward, over-the-top, gourmet meals I’d created, I’d never once done a traditional Christmas feast at an English hall. My wheels started to spin, planning menus and visualizing the tabletop in full cinematic Technicolor. The chance to design a dinner that would simultaneously hearken back to childhood roots so different from mine, while putting a surprising, modern spin on conventional favorites like sage and onion stuffing, roasted Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, a flaming Christmas pudding, drew me in – quite against my will. My cells started tingling, just thinking about the chance to put my signature all over a meal that jaded guests thought they knew inside out and backwards. I bit my lip.

“I’m sorry, Pips,” I said, honestly. “I want to, but I just can’t.” I was surprised to feel my eyes beginning to well.

“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” she said crisply. “If I don’t hear from you, I hope you have a happy Christmas and check in with me in January.”

“I definitely, definitely will!” I said, pushing the “end” button on my iPhone with my left thumb. I looked at my naked ring finger. And when I do call, you’ll be stunned to hear that not only am I moving to New York, but I’m also engaged to be married.

So, I’m a chef, but not a chef like you’d think. I’m a chef who makes my living cooking not in any restaurant where a regular person – or a rich, powerful or famous person, actually – could book a table, but behind the legendary “green baize doors” of some of the most posh private residences in the world. I’ve made it to an apex in my career. All the meals I cook now are invitation-only.

I eventually escaped upward from testosterone-fuelled kitchens in France, and the early days of the London restaurant scene, but not before honing my culinary skills, growing a T-bone-thick hide, and a tongue like a sushi knife. Nothing else has ever come as naturally to me, and I have to say, so far, it’s given me a pretty good life. I’ve done more traveling than most people do in a lifetime, and I’ve stood in rooms with princes, war heroes and TV stars. And, indirectly, it led me to Ben. Handsome, funny, swaggering Ben in his well-cut suits.

In my wildest dreams I’d never thought I’d attract such a catch. He was the type of man who simultaneously made office interns swoon, while garnering nods of approval from mothers and grannies. Sexy, but respectable.

Rolling over onto Ben’s pillow, I put my phone down on the night table, on top of his Financial Times.

“Ben? Good morning!” I called out, propping myself up on an elbow and craning my neck to look around the corner into the bathroom. “Are you making coffee?” I really had to pee. We must have had a bottle of wine each last night. I’d talked a little about how giving up The Gastronome’s Trust – Phillipa’s agency – made me sad, but he just told me again, firmly, that going back to The States and finally getting serious about my life was the sensible thing to do. Deep down, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on in that department, after dropping out of college to chase a man to Paris – and look how that turned out.

So I let Ben have the last word, and wrap up the conversation. Anyway, he wasn’t much in the mood for talking, if you follow me.

I got up off the bed, and pulled the sheet around myself, just to be safe, even though I was pretty sure now that he had already left the flat.

Where would he have gone at this hour? He didn’t say anything about an early client. I walked to the bathroom using tiny geisha-like steps since the bottom of Ben’s sheet was winding itself tighter and tighter around my ankles, practically hobbling me. Stupid, maybe, since Ben saw me naked on a semi-regular basis. Then again I’ve never been a flaunter or the parade-around-naked type, whereas my best friend Posy would happily drink tea and read the morning papers without a stitch on, all the while chattering about the weather. The combination of growing up with servants and living at girls’ boarding schools had cured her of modesty.

Posy Wase-Bailey is my closest friend on earth and why I live in London now. You’ve no doubt seen her in the papers, attending this gala or that premiere. Owing to the fact that her dad is that charismatic airline owner – the one who took himself to outer space – she has spent her life in the limelight. It doesn’t hurt a bit that she’s a fearless trendsetter, often spotting the next “it” designer, and that she’s always good for a controversial quote. We’re like chalk and cheese in that way, but under the surface, where it matters, we’re soul sisters separated at birth. I cannot imagine what my life would be like had she not spotted me crying into my coffee that day in Paris. I might have fled home to the States, or worse yet, begged Stephen for one more chance.

Anyway, back to the present! Memo to self, must not dwell on the past.

Normally, by this hour of the morning, I would have mainlined caffeine. Being an addict is a job hazard. In every kitchen where I’ve ever worked, there’s been a top-shelf espresso machine and we staff pound coffees all day long. I had the briefest fantasy that Ben might bring me a cup, then sighed. I was the coffee bringer in this relationship.

I dropped my sheet and eased, undrugged, into the trickle of tepid water the English insist on calling a shower, beginning to suds my hair with the Jo Malone Lime, Basil and Mandarin shampoo sitting on the ledge, delighted to find that there was a matching bottle of conditioner. It smelled heavenly and his thoughtfulness warmed my heart. It more than made up for not bringing me a cappuccino. Normally, there was only a sad jug of Boots brand baby shampoo.

He never said so, but I could tell Ben wasn’t wild about my keeping toiletries here. He’s a neat freak, so I made it a point to carry out whatever I’d carried in, like my travel toothbrush and trial-sized toothpaste. I’d left my gold drop earrings on the sink once, and the next morning, after he left for work, I found them on the kitchen table in a creamy, business-sized envelope with my full mailing address on it. I smiled thinking about it. It’s habits like uber-organization that got him a place as a solicitor at Thompson Loyal, his logical stepping-stone to his goal – being a real New York lawyer. What a mature quality. It would make my mother drool. Posy on the other hand once said she thought Ben was a bit OCD.

Did he leave for work? I thought to myself, rinsing the last of the conditioner out of my hair. Ben’s usually like Pavlov’s dogs when he hears shower water running, sprinting in and stripping along the way. He loved shower sex. Me, not so much. “Where’s your sportsmanship?” he’d ask me, winking. “It’s a challenge when I’m slippery.” Usually, I was glad to give him what he wanted as, let’s face it, most females of the species would kill to be with Ben. I could see it in super-hot girls’ eyes when Ben and I were out for drinks or dinner. And I could practically hear them thinking, “He’s a solid 9 and, she’s, well…not.”

Clean, I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a white Turkish towel off the towel warmer. English people are so weird about bathrooms. They aren’t interested in ambient heat or water pressure, but they’d rather die than press a room-temperature towel to their bodies. I could forgive the quirks, though, since being converted to full-on Anglophile. I’d lived here long enough that England felt like home, and there was no denying that Ben being an Englishman was part of the turn-on.

It had been over a year since I’d met Ben at the London Aquarium benefit. I guess you could say we went from zero to sixty, fast. I think I called him my boyfriend the first day we woke up together. If I was honest, I’d have to admit it stung that he still hadn’t introduced me to any of his family, except for one sister over a quick after-work drink.

Well, the tide was about to turn, and I had big plans to make it all turn out like in the movies. Maybe his mother would invite me to call her “Mum”? Could I say that without feeling like a poser? Or would it be “Mother Flannery”?

I was determined that this Christmas would be perfect, especially since the last one had been a major disappointment. He had invited me to his family’s home, but at the eleventh hour, he’d called from the New York office. He made a thousand apologies and cancelled the whole holiday plan, explaining that he’d have to stay in the U.S. through New Year’s, while I was stuck in London alone.

“I’m crushed, Darling,” he had cooed transatlantically into the phone. “And so’s my family. Dad especially. He said he wanted to get a good look at my girl to see if she fit in with the Flannery clan. Please try to understand.”

I remember the squeezing feeling I’d gotten in my stomach. At the time, I’d sensed a whiff of Stephen. Don’t catastrophize, Juliet. Ben is not your old boyfriend.

“You do wish you were here with me, don’t you?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ben had replied impatiently. “Of course I want to be with you. It’s just quite impossible at the moment. Be practical, Juliet.”

It sounded like something my mother would say, and I was embarrassed. I was being selfish, wasn’t I?

“Any man who wants to put a little money in the bank, maybe raise a family someday has to get ahead, right?” Ben asked. “It’s torture to climb the ladder at Thompson Loyal, but those who can’t stand the heat should get out of the kitchen. I am proving my worth. If my boss says jump, I have to ask how high? Being abroad at Christmastime is just one of the many small sacrifices I have to make while I’m junior.”

I chose to ignore the fact that Ben had called me an idiot, and focus on how my heart sizzled at the word family. Oh my god, does Ben want a baby? Wait! Do I want a baby? Would we have more than one? 28 isn’t that young, after all and…

“They call work work for a reason,” he’d lectured on. “I have to be on location in the Big Apple because old Martin Loyal has us representing that film production studio in Soho – The New York Soho – and it’s all hands on deck here. Contracts for directors and film stars, insurance riders for the special effects…you know, boring.”

“I’m sorry you have to work,” I had told him. At that point, I’d started feeling dumb. Who wouldn’t rather be wined and dined and taken to bed than stuck in a boring law office discussing contracts and insurance? This was proof that he was good husband material.

Don’t fight him on this one, Juliet. Support him, and soon, you’ll be working in the kitchen to prepare holiday dinners for your own little family, not for strangers.

“Sorry, Ben. Of course you’re right. Just making sure you don’t have something cooking with The Statue of Liberty,” I’d said, trying to laugh it off.

“You’re the only absurdly tall woman who carries a torch that I’m giving it to,” he’d flirted.

“What’ll you do for the holiday? You won’t be in some diner eating pressed turkey and instant mashed potatoes alone, will you?”

“Don’t worry about me, one of my mates from the office here has claimed me. I’ll be seen to…Look, I have to run. I miss you like mad and can’t wait to get a handful of your…Yes, Bob? Right! I’m just hanging up! Bye, Jubes,” he whispered, “Happy Christmas. I’ll call when I can.”

Today would be more about getting back to normal as a couple than about fantasy land, though. We had trip plans to solidify, details to discuss about scheduling. I was tired but running on twitchy excitement. With Ben gone already, I could have slept late, I thought, wrapping myself in his waffle robe (“It’s a dressing gown, Jubes, I’m not a judge,” Ben would have scolded me). I went into the kitchen, still harboring a tiny glimmer of hope that he might be sitting at the table going over briefs and sipping a cup of coffee.

No such luck. No Ben…and no coffee. My brain felt like lead. I didn’t think I could make it to the Pret around the corner to buy one before getting dressed, so I grabbed a bag of ground espresso from the freezer. I twisted off the portafilter and saw that there was no filter basket inside. Urghh! I’d asked Ben a dozen times to tell his cleaner to leave the machine alone. First, she washed all the parts with soap, which ruined the taste of the lovely pure Kona coffee I kept here, and second, she never put it back together properly.

Irked and jonesing for my java, I held onto the kitchen counter with a tight grip, plotting out my next move. Go out for coffee, or look for the missing piece. Just be methodical, I told myself. It can’t have disappeared. Just look one place at a time, and you’ll find it.

I’ll admit to feeling a bit smug as I worked from top left to bottom right, searching the cabinets. I was thinking how adult it was of me not to flip out just because I’d been awake for this long with no coffee. And wasn’t I grown-up for not wishing that Ben’s cleaner would be deported before her regular Wednesday shift so she could never touch this espresso machine, ever, as long as she was alive?

As I rifled through each cabinet and cupboard, I grew more and more frantic. Agitated, I moved on to the drawers. Rubber bands, twine, and scissors in this one. Potholders, tea towels, and sponges in that one. Soon I was ripping through the deep drawers all the way over by the table, where, realistically, no coffee filter would ever dwell. Still, I was on a mission.

A tiny, distant voice tried to tell me that I’d crossed a line. I had the vague sense that if Ben walked in, he wouldn’t be amused at my ransacking his flat. But that didn’t stop me. Another drawer. Place mats, table cloths, and candlesticks, but no filter. A cabinet. Photo albums, maps, and board games, but still no filter. Deep in my rational mind, I knew that the filter wouldn’t be around the corner in the lounge, but my rational mind was deeply asleep and my coffee-addicted animal sense was propelling my body.

I flung open the double doors of the cabinet below the television set, and pulled out a stack of file boxes. That’s when I saw the corner of the padded envelope sticking out of The Economist, on top of a pile of folders. My body beat my brain to the panic. Blood roared through my ears as I eased out the envelope and held it in my hand.

Amanda Selmont

39 East 79th Street

New York City, NY 10075

Amanda, the 5’ 2”, ice-blonde from Manhattan? The one who called the cocktail dress I’d worn to the company party “appropriate”?

I watched my hands tear it open like I was watching a movie of someone else’s hands. I slid out a thick, creamy slice of stationery and watched a tasteful pair of platinum hoops fall to the floor. Amanda’s earrings.

Is that who had seen to him last Christmas?

I flashed back to the cream-colored envelope that had once held the earrings I’d left overnight. The envelope that had my full mailing address on it. The one I’d been naïve enough to be charmed by. Ben wasn’t a neat freak! He was a son-of-a-bitch liar who walked around behind me cleaning up any proof that I’d set foot in his bachelor pad.

Tucked inside the large envelope I now held was a thinner, smaller envelope. I pressed it between my fingers and thumb. Whatever was inside crackled against the paper. My heart was clawing at my ribcage, skittering and wild. I knew I didn’t want to see what was in there, but my eyes couldn’t convince my hands to stop tearing paper. To my horror, I reached in and pulled out the world’s scratchiest lace thong, dotted with rhinestone studs. I held it up to find that one side of it was ripped, threads dangling.

That goddamn son of a—He’d lied about his flight! To my face! He’d gotten back a day early and holed up in his love cave with Amanda. Right here in London. Had that bitch been in his bed – the bed that I’d just crawled out of – the night before I was? Did he leave early this morning to meet her for a quickie before work?